Close window | View original article
It's been a few weeks since Russia invaded its tiny neighbor, the independent Republic of Georgia, while the rest of the world was paying attention to the Olympics.
This came as a complete surprise. In a flashback to Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, we got to see the not very reassuring spectacle of the world's leaders scuttling about with absolutely no clue of what was going on or what to do.
Barack Obama memorably told both Georgia and the invader 100 times its size to back off from whaling on each other; some observers even started out saying Georgia had it coming. John McCain was about the only nationally known politician who got it right first time, absolutely condemning Russia for invading an independent country that was no threat to its own security - but, then, as a lifetime Cold Warrior, McCain probably didn't have to ponder long and hard as to whether we wanted to be on Russia's side or the side of Anybody Else.
The comedy goes on. France's President Nicolas Sarkozy flew to Moscow to negotiate a peace agreement, which was duly signed and just as duly ignored. Russia agreed to pull back all its combat troops - and immediately broke open boxes of white armbands for all its soldiers in the area. Shazzam! Combat troops gone - all that's left is "peacekeepers."
Well, it doesn't make much different whether Georgia's key railway bridges and fuel trains are blown up by Russian combat troops or Russian peacekeepers; the country is in chaos either way. Whole cities lie in ruins; the main port of Poti is occupied by Russians who take Georgian prisoners while "liberating" American military equipment; and Russia has made it abundantly clear that Georgia, as a practical matter, is only as independent as Russia chooses to allow it to be.
It's a sad day for the United States when a loyal ally who contributed combat troops to Iraq is summarily occupied by an enemy country and we do nothing more than send humanitarian aid. We hope they got plenty of band-aids and duct tape.
A quick look at the map reveals why our response was so ineffectual. Georgia may be only a plane flight away - but it's a long, long plane flight, over an awful lot of countries, many of which are not really our friends.
How, exactly, would we propose to get troops into Georgia, should we wish to do so? Fly them there, at great expense, and expect the Russians not to shoot them down? Send them in by sea, assuming the Turks grant us permission? They control the Dardanelles Strait, the only way into the Black Sea.
Even if the Turks agreed, there's still the small problem of the Russian Navy's Black Seas Fleet, which while a shadow of its Soviet self, is still a pretty impressive pile of hardware. Could we do it? Of course we could, but it would make Iraq look like the invasion of Granada, which was a quick in-and-out that everybody forgot about a week later.
Yet Georgia is of great strategic importance. At a time when Western economies are suffering from inflated oil prices while the world's sheiks and petty dictators bleed us dry, any source for more oil that is halfway friendly is an opportunity worth pursuing.
A look at the map tells the tale: Georgia is the only possible pipeline route to the petroleum-rich "Weirdistans" of Central Asia that doesn't involve Russia or Iran. To get that oil to us, Georgia has to remain free and independent.
Have we reached such a state of desperation that America must be prepared for war with Russia over some tiny country that, until a month ago, nobody but Dick Cheney had ever heard of? Well, not exactly. America doesn't like paying these oil prices, but we actually do have plenty of oil of our own if we can get our government to stay out of the way.
Europe has no such option. The North Sea oilfields are running out; no more have been discovered. For the last decade, the Europeans expected to be able to get energy supplies from a friendly Russia and built billions of dollars worth of pipelines accordingly; this turns out to have been more risky than it appeared, as Russia proved itself both able and willing to turn off the gas for its own political ends.
Why, then, is Europe not more involved in its own national security affairs? Eastern Europe has figured it out: the presidents of five Eastern European countries personally went to Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, while the shooting was at its height, to demonstrate their solidarity with Georgia and opposition to Russian aggression.
David Cameron, leader of England's Tory opposition party, showed up later; but Prime Minister Gordon Brown stayed on the beach on vacation. Europe's heavy hitters spent more time on the phone with Moscow than Tbilisi; and not a one of them has even made warning military moves.
They can't. For all that Europe's armies show a roster of thousands, the only country that has any serious ability to support forces outside their own territory is England - which is also the European country farthest from Georgia, and best supplied with its own energy resources. All of Europe is tied together in the world's greatest alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); but what, exactly, does this mean?
NATO was created in the early days of the Cold War, when Russian tanks were expected any day to cross into Western Europe. The purpose of NATO was to ensure a united defense of Europe. Thousands of American troops were stationed on German bases (at our expense) and American leadership provided coordination, command-and-control, and transport.
The thought was that no country could stand against Russia alone, but if everyone stood together, they'd have a chance. That's why the NATO treaty includes Article 5 - if the territory of one NATO member is attacked, all the others will treat it as an attack on their own territory and respond with force.
Article 5 has been invoked exactly once. On 9-11, the territory of the United States was attacked by terrorists supported by the Taliban-run nation of Afghanistan. The NATO countries responded accordingly, with a unified attack on the Taliban.
This part worked fairly well, and the Taliban were run out of Kabul in a matter of weeks; the reconstruction and establishment of a friendly Afghan government has gone rather less well. The list of countries involved demonstrates the effort to be truly international, or so it appears: 22 countries have paid the ultimate price in the deaths of their soldiers in Afghanistan.
As nice as it is to have friends, it's even nicer to have helpful friends. At the very top of its article on "Coalition casualties in Afghanistan," Wikipedia tells a sad tale: America has lost more soldiers than everyone else combined.
507 Americans have died fighting in Afghanistan, 116 Brits, and 92 Canadians. In fourth place comes Germany, with 27; it goes downhill from there, and everyone from number 10 on is in the single digits. Yes, NATO has supplied a multinational force to Afghanistan; yes, the other countries are showing their support, and that's important. Every little bit helps - but the emphasis is on little.
You can almost see why the Ron Paulites, conservative though they be, are upset about American military involvement overseas. We are not participating in a defensive alliance. We are not supporting other countries in their own efforts.
No, we, and we alone, are out there doing all the fighting, all the paying, and practically all the dying, with a helpful but jumpy little British terrier by our side. As far as actual combat power and combat deaths are concerned, everyone else might as well stay home.
Why, pray tell, is the United States the only free country which does any defending? If other free countries have national interests - and surely they do - why don't they at least participate in pursuing them? The Russians and the Chinese have no qualms about using military force where they think it right, and most importantly, are fully prepared to pay the cost.
Historically, we, too, have been willing to pay to keep our freedoms, but we're getting less and less willing. Continental Europe might as well have no army for all the good it does, we seem to be walking the same path a couple of decades behind them.
When Yugoslavia exploded in the 90s, the EU dithered, moaned, wrung their hands, and sent "peacekeepers" to give a false sense of security and pusillanimously watch thousands be murdered. Only when America got involved were heads knocked together.
Name one conflict anywhere in the world in the last half century which came to a good resolution thanks to European military forces without American involvement or British leadership? You can't! There aren't any!
It's bad enough that European countries can't successfully do military operations outside their own territory, but it looks like they can't even do much useful in their own country, on defense! When Russia invaded Georgia, despite the fact that the Georgian military has been trained and equipped by Americans for some years, their soldiers accomplished nothing. They might as well not even have been there.
Of course, nobody expects them to actually defeat a foe 100 times their size, but they at least should have been able to let the Russians know they'd been in a fight; Chechnya, not an independent country at all and certainly not American-supported, accomplished at least that much when Russia invaded them. If the Georgians don't think their own land is worth defending, or if they aren't able to do so, that's a bad sign.
So, when we look at the NATO "alliance", we need to clearly understand what it is: In military terms, NATO is not an alliance at all. NATO is, quite simply, a list of countries that the United States is willing to go to war to defend, because they can't and won't (England excepted). In other words, American protectorates.
Is this the business we want to be in? It certainly isn't what at least half of American voters want us to be doing.
Is it a business we should be in? Well, John McCain told the Saddleback congregation that evil must be confronted and defeated. He's right, of course; but there's an awful lot of evil in the world and we can't confront all of it everywhere.
Is it truly worth the death of American soldiers for us to take control of Darfur or Somalia? What would we do with them if we did? It doesn't take a cynic to imagine how quickly the posters would be changed: inside of a year, thousands around the world would demand "U.S. Out of Sudan!"
Defending other countries is exceedingly costly, both in lives and in money. If the U.S. is to be the world's policeman, shouldn't the rest of the world be paying taxes to us to support the expense? After all, you pay taxes to pay your local cop's salary, don't you?
There's a lot to like about Georgia. There's a lot to like about Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, and all manner of other countries that are desperately trying to become stable, wealthy democracies.
There's a lot to not like about Russia and China - nothing against their people, it's their governments that are odious - but we need to be very careful not to make promises we can't keep regardless of how pleasant the thought might be. Good intentions may be good enough for American politics regardless of actual results, but good intentions without force behind them are worth precisely nothing out there in the big, bad world.
Russia's invasion of Georgia has served us a timely warning. If the United States can't defend a country - and it surely can't defend Georgia - and Europe won't, we'll only look foolish and impotent if we say we will. Russia has figured this out, in spades; it's time we did too.
Antibiotic medicines have saved thousands if not millions of lives over the years since they were invented, but so many people use antibiotics for everything that they are starting not to work anymore. It's far wiser to let your own body's immune system have first crack at the problem; only if it fails, and you actually do get an infection you can't handle, is an antibiotic medicine appropriate. Use antibiotics every time, and you'll find that your own immune system goes to sleep and isn't there if you ever need it.
Has American willingness to defend all comers caused the same thing on a larger scale? Armies are expensive; if there is someone else who is willing to defend you, there's a strong temptation to let them do so and spend your own money on something else.
Maybe it's time for the U.S. to start setting minimum requirements for nations that would like to have a big ally on their side. If a country isn't willing to pull its weight; to maintain, train, and properly equip an army appropriate to its size, with the ability to actually fight and do damage both at home and abroad, and the political willingness to participate when we ask them to - well, if they want to go it alone, let's let them.
NATO still has its thousands of officials, its grand headquarters, its huge budget, its minions scurrying hither and thither, but the Russians have revealed NATO for what it is - an expensive, impotent corpse.